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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28177098">Five, Six, Eighty-Three</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadWolf256/pseuds/BadWolf256'>BadWolf256</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who (2005), Sherlock (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>AU, Angst</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 20:22:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,827</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28177098</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadWolf256/pseuds/BadWolf256</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>They are not perfect people. Emotionless, at times. Lost. They hold no hope for their futures, barely a concept. Yet they wander the path.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Rose Tyler &amp; John Watson, Sherlock Holmes/Rose Tyler</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Five, Six, Eighty-Three</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>
  <b>A/N: So this is a repost of a super old Roselock fic I wrote for Teaspoon about three years ago now... I've been going through my old fics over there, trying to see what to save and what to get rid of, and reminded this piece of soul-destroying angst that I wrote for a rare-pair crossover ship... and now here we are! That's all that I have. I have nothing else to say. </b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <b>Disclaimer: As always, if I owned them, they wouldn't keep me up at night.</b></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The last time he sees her, she’s leaning over the north balcony, framed by mist and cigarette smoke and the starless midnight dark. Fifty degrees out and she’s wrapped up in violet blue, eyes trained down towards London. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Don’ you dare say you missed me.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">There she is, then, whirling ‘round to give him her best stone glare. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I didn’t.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Good.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I didn’t miss you. I was too busy being…” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Sherlock?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Yes?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“What do you see when you look at me?” </span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">They’re running down an abandoned street in London, and he’s thinking how very much he’d like to know her, this echo of a girl who can blur into buildings in such a way as to give off the illusion of never having been there in the first place. She’s like Eurus, he thinks, a bit. From what he can tell, which isn’t much. Somehow he knows whatever he’s seeing in her isn’t true. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It should bother him more than it does. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Five.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Six.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Eighty-three.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Civilian, then?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“No.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Soldier?”</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Weren’t any soldiers at Canary Wharf.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“There are always soldiers.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Oh please. They were Torchwood. Anyone calling Torchwood soldiers doesn’t have a clue what’s real.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Other than me, of course. I know everything about you.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Not yet.” </span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Three in the morning is too early to have Lestrade knocking on the door. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“What do you want?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Oh, nothing much. Can I?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“It’s a case, then? Something you couldn’t solve?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“More like, something she couldn’t.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Ah. The mysterious <em>her.</em>”</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Not so mysterious to you, I wouldn’t think.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“We’ve met.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“And what do you think about her?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“She’s a good puzzle.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“She’s a good puzzle, you mean, and you’re not quite up to the challenge.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I’ll figure it out eventually.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He tells her, over chips on ratty green upholstery, utterly infuriated by her silence. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I’ll figure it out eventually.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She takes her chips drowning in vinegar, likes to glance out the window now and again. Unmistakable longing, like if she could just get outside, just get to where there’s earth and sky and <em>him</em>- That mysterious him who’s left her alone all her life, hasn’t he?-, it’ll all be alright. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Who are you waiting for?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Someone.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Someone you loved?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">This is how they know she’s beaten him, that, him asking her instead of telling her. She shrugs at it. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You’ll figure it out. Eventually.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She looks out the window again.</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Mycroft says he’s spending too much time on her. He has a file waiting that would put it all to rest, if only he’d take a look. Mrs. Hudson says it’s a beautiful thing to see. John says he’ll be over at Mary’s, tonight, ring me if you need anything. No, actually, you know what, don’t bother. Because I know you won’t. Ring me, that is. She’ll have you too busy to be ringing me. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Eurus says nothing. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Today she’s slow and it’s gentle when she plays.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Why did you come here?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I need your help.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Never mind that it’s dangerous, that it always goes the same way in the end. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“No you don’t. You’ve never needed my help with anything.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">No, he thinks but doesn’t say, I haven’t. But I think I might, now. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Eurus says kill her, but she’d kill him if he tried.</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It’s nothing in the way she says it, just in the pull of her on him, this magnet in the middle of London, so he goes when she calls for him, finds her under a tree somewhere, or in the middle of this building with junkies passed out on the steps, giving the nearest one, (And his broken guitar), a look borne out of something in between hatred and pity.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“He reminds me a bit of my old bloke’s the thing.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Your old bloke was an addict, then. Most likely cocaine, judging by his occupation, which you’ve admitted.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“He left me in a hotel.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“For another musician, and they moved out of country. He took all your money, too, probably more than that. You went back to your mum’s, because there was nowhere else to go, and then you got a job. Nothing prominent, because you left school for him, a shop, or a chippy, maybe.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Jimmy Stone.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Shop or chippy?”</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Shop. It could’ve been worse, I s’pose. I mean, it could’ve been… He could’ve stayed. ‘Cos I would’ve. I really would’ve. I’d’ve stayed with him. If I could.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He gets things right, sometimes, about her, but they’re not talking about Jimmy Stone anymore. They’re just two not-quite-strangers on the trail of a murder, and he knows better than to ask.</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Sherlock!” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">John could want anything, when it comes down to it. Probably just for him to get the eyes out of the frying pan, but it could be anything. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I’m measuring the percentage of-” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You’re not measuring anything, actually, because Molly’s invited us out.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Out? What would Molly want with us at this hour?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“It’s seven on a Friday, Sherlock.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">When what he means is, How are you so bad at this? </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“We’re going out.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You’re going out.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“With Molly. At the pub. Both of us.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“If you want to have sex with her, John, be my guest.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I don’t want to have sex with her.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Oh, I can see it in your eyes. You’re wearing a new jacket. You’ve ironed your jumper. You’re asking me to go out with you, and Molly, on a Friday, and you already knew perfectly well what my answer would be.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You’re not good enough for her.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“No. No I’m not.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Not- I’m not talking about Molly. You’re not good enough for <em>Her.</em> Your mystery woman. What’s her name, again? Irene Adler? No, it’s not, because Irene Adler’s dead, she was killed because of you, Sherlock, and <em>that’s</em> why you’re not good enough for her!” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“No it’s not.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Sorry?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“That’s not why I’m not good enough for her. Everything about me is why I’m not good enough for her, John, you know that.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I-” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I’d tell you not to do it in my bed, but there’s no use in that, is there? Didn’t think so. Try and have a good time tonight, John. I’ll just be…” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Out. With her.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Checking up on a case.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The worst part about it is that he’s too good a liar. It wouldn’t matter either way.</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">They meet in alleyways. In crowded streets, on planes bound for other countries, on the sidelines of swimming pools in the summertime, and his fingers reach for a gun that he doesn’t need anymore while she looks at the sky, eyes wide and fearful. They meet when it’s safe and they meet when it’s dangerous, and sometimes, when the world is pressing down too tight around them, they meet at midnight, somewhere halfway across the city and different every time. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It’s not enough.</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Five.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Six.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Eighty-three.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I’ll not be coming home tonight. I’ll not be seeing you again. Ever.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You could though. If you wanted. There’s nothing holding you in this city but me.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“What, London? There’s plenty holding me in London. Just none of it’s strong enough, is all.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Aren’t they the same thing, in the end?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Sherlock?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Yes?”</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I’ll not be seeing you again, and I don’t think you want me to say sorry for that, but I’m going to anyways.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“So?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Sorry.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I’ll just- I’ll just walk you home, then.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Sherlock. ‘M sorry, you ‘ave to understand, ‘m <em>sorry.</em>” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“It’s-” You never told me that you spoke with an accent. You’d not have learned to stop with it at a shop, no one at a shop would care that you spoke with an accent, they wouldn’t have any reason too. You only ever wear one jacket, this one jacket. It obviously holds sentimental value to you, but it’s not formal enough for government, and your trainers are white but there’s hardly any scuffs, it’s almost like you used to run but stopped running, a long, long time ago, and when did I start saying ‘almost’ beforehand anyways? </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You’ll make do, yeah?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I have John. And cases. I have… Cases.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Righ’ then. Do me a favor, will you? Forget me. ‘Cos there’s nothin’ about me you’d believe if you figured it out.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">What can he say, that this promise she’s asking for is too much for him, now? That he can’t, after this, and everything, that he wants to and he can’t? </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I will figure it out, you know.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Eventually.”</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You don’ act like you used to. There’s feelings, now, an’ you’ll ‘ave to learn to deal with them same as the rest of us, ‘f you’ve got this far. How is it that we used to know each other so well, when you didn’ know the firs’ thing about me and I knew everything without even havin’ to look? Or is it the other way ‘round, now that you’ve figured it out?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I haven’t, though. I haven’t figured it out at all.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Liar.”</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“She left you, is what happened, and now you’re obsessed with her because you, Sherlock Holmes, fell in love without meaning to. It doesn’t take a genius to know <em>that.</em>” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I don’t love, John.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You do now.”</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p3">
  <span class="s1">“Prove it.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“What you want me to say, there’s no proof. You knew that all along, didn’t you?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Are you asking or telling?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Telling.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“No. You’re not. You’re askin’ me, ‘cos you don’ wanna ruin the person I was, to you. She’s not real, y’know?</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">They have him on a case and he smells it on her, smells the experience and the mystery and the faintest impressions of ‘lost’ ‘traveler’ ‘estate girl’ ‘idiot’. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He couldn’t have been more wrong. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“How many of them were there?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Five.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Six.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She looks up almost lazily, and her eyes tell a different story, shot through with gold and amber. He can see the pain in them, pulsating through every part of her body when she meets his eyes. She’s more than what she betrays about herself. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He hates it. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Eighty-three.”</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You never knew the person that I used to be, you never even began to know her, why do you think I never told you my name?!” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Because, Rose Tyler, you weren’t strong enough to bear to know that this is what you’ve become!” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Oh, what I’ve become! You were a character in a storybook!”</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Five.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Six.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Eighty-three.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Was it actually eighty-three?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Would they have been able to tell, if I’d lied?”</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Lestrade? Maybe. Anderson? Not a chance.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You didn’t, either.”</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She never did come back for him, and he never did forget, but for her sake he stopped looking, going back to John and cases, two things that he can’t afford to lose anymore, maybe never could afford to lose. John notices, though. He notices that sometimes now he lets people cry on his shoulder, and sometimes when Molly comes inside and he knows she’s had an awful day, exactly why she’s had an awful day, he doesn’t mention it. And sometimes he hugs his brother, a gesture that leaves Mycroft so utterly horrified that he slams the door on his way out the flat. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I rather think,” Mrs. Hudson says, while he pulls the kettle off the stove, pouring her tea in a swift, efficient motion, “That girl of yours did you some good.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The teacup slips from his hands and shatters when it hits the floor.</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“A storybook.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I… Oh <em>Fuck.</em>” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“A storybook. Well, since you’ve so clearly explained where I come from, why don’t I return the favor, Mrs. Tyler from a parallel universe. Tell me, did your Time Lord lover ever forgive you for being a shop girl?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Yes. Rassilon, <em>Yes.</em>” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Liar.”</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“What’s wrong with him, John? You must know something.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Well, Molly, he was in love.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“But it wasn’t with me.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Why are we still doing this?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Say hello to him for me.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Okay. Okay, I’ll say hello to the man you loved, while we were going out, who wasn’t me. While you sit there and not answer my question.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“It wasn’t just- It was a long time before that.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Good to know.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“John-” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Just tell me… Was there even a chance for us?”</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Of course there was.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You, Molly Hooper, are a worse liar than Sherlock.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“It was worth a shot, though. For your sake.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“For someone’s sake. Maybe.”</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You know I thought that it wouldn’t be true.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“‘Cos you don’ believe in aliens?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Scientifically it’s almost impossible that they wouldn’t exist. However the probability of a species being close enough to Earth to be able to reach us in the first place or willingly initiating first contact with the human race is slim to none. As for the Time Lord part… There’s a picture that you keep in your jacket.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“It fell out one night, yeah, an’ you picked it up an’ gave it back to me.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“After reading it. <em>The Doctor, Time Lord.</em> A rather scientific title, but then, that would be standard for someone who works in Torchwood. Mycroft gets on with the director. While I knew immediately that he was the man you had lost tragically in the battle of Canary Wharf, I didn’t think that the Time Lord part meant anything; Probably just a nickname used by close friends and family. Did you think it would work? Telling me to forget about you? Did you think that it would actually work? Of course you did, I know you, you’re the kind of person who doesn’t do anything for the reason that anyone else thinks you’re doing it. That’s how I knew. When you said that, that I should forget you, it all clicked into place in that moment. You walked away and I figured you out.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Did you?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You met him when you were nineteen. You were working at a shop and you met him, it doesn’t matter how. Probably a threat of some kind, alien, and he asked you the same thing that you asked me, demanded it, actually. That’s why you didn’t, no one can demand anything of you. They never could when I knew you and they never could back then. He asked you to travel with him, you said no, the first time. He asked you twice, the first time you said no because you were smart, but the second time, when you learned that it traveled through time as well as space, your wonder won out. It would have had to travel through time, what kind of a name is Time Lord otherwise.You traveled him for two years, based on your age and manner- He broke your heart when you came here, obviously not by your own choice, as you kept working with aliens, which would indicate that you had no desire to give up the stars. Now. Did I get anything wrong?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She’s standing there, one moment, slapping him the next. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Not yet.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">If he blinks he can catch a glimpse of what she must have looked like, that first night on her own in a strange universe, devastated and lonely, blood matted in her hair and smeared across her reflection in a cracked mirror. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I love you.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">And when he blinks again he sees her headed back the way she came, that last night after she left him, feeling her tears run down her face while they mix with the rain, hailing a cab with a cabbie who wasn’t a murderer but was no less ignored, crying herself to sleep in the hotel room, and when he opens his eyes he can hear her thinking, loud as her heartbeat, that she hates him so much for it, so much more than she ever hated him, because at least he never said it like that. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I promised myself, y’know, that I never would again. ‘S jus’, when I make promises, they end up broken, like. Forever, I told him, when he asked me, ‘f I was gonna stay with him, I looked him in the eyes an’ I said forever. Couldn’ even have kept it ‘f I tried, he had a longer forever than I did, ‘nyways. Nine hundred years old when we met, with this trick to cheatin’ death.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I’d ask to kiss you, if I had the slightest idea how to go about it.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Her steps are sure, measured, shaking. She’s nervous, and it’s all to do with him, but then, it’s been a long time since she kissed a man. Or Time Lord. Or whatever it was that she kissed, when it was time to do the kissing. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Oh. ‘S not too terribly hard.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">As if the moment that their lips touch he isn’t drowning in a sea of his own creation, lit on fire by this indescribable feeling that he was right to hide from himself, so very, very wrong. Like he doesn’t lose every coherent thought he’s had in the past seven years of his life, before that even, as if he can think of anything to say that she hasn’t said first, words don’t mean anything until he hears them from her. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">As if he doesn’t take them and throw them back, because half the feeling is seeing himself as she sees him as he sees her see him, down and down forever, as if he doesn’t see that that one word, that singular defense she’s been using all night is meaningless in her eyes, because words don’t mean anything to <em>her</em> if she doesn’t hear them from <em>him.</em> </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You’re a liar. Still.”</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">John still runs a blog. Every time he sees them together he whistles, not quite believing that she’s come back, not quite liking it that she has. The blog gets hits, anyway, which is how he ends up meeting her, Mary, and being astounded that Sherlock lets him see her, Mary, without texting or crashing or somehow getting in the way. Mary, it turns out, is one of the nicest girls he’s ever met, one of the only ones at least who’s not afraid to speak their mind and have a laugh at his expense if he does something too funny to ignore. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Rose takes a shine to her immediately. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Fast friends, the two of them are, from the moment that he takes Mary on her first flat tour. John doesn’t know yet what they talked about that day. Sex, probably, so he tends to avoid thinking about it, even though he’s pretty sure Sherlock would have told him, if they’d had sex. He would’ve asked his advice, at least, it’s the kind of thing that Sherlock would be too smart to do on his own. Ergo- Lack of sex, probably. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Rose. Hates everyone. Just so you know.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“John.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“She does. She hates everyone and it’s bloody. Bloody…” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“She seemed nice, from where I was standing.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“She’s not, though. I’ve known her for a long time, Mary, she’s the exact opposite of that.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“We talked.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know what freaky sex things the two of you talked about. I don’t.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“She said that I should stay with you, John, because you’re a good man, and the fact that you’re a good man is the only reason she didn’t make a move on you when you first met. She told me that she would rather have you hate her than get dragged into a war on her behalf.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“What’s Sherlock, then?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Someone who’s not good enough for her, if she’s half the person I think.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I told her that.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Did you?”</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“The time we- Well, it was more like- We talked. Once. It couldn’t have been very long before she left him, and I don’t even remember what started it, only that I told him he wasn’t good enough for her. He never said otherwise, though, is the thing I don’t understand about that night. He usually corrects me, if I’m wrong.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Maybe you weren’t wrong, then. About her.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Better than Sherlock, though. That’s not too high a bar.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Talk to her.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I can’t.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Why, because you never have before? Talk to her.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Mary-”</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Talk to her. I’ll wait.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He walks to the kitchen caneless, didn’t even notice she’d taken it, and he didn’t say that he’d never forgive her for this, and he’s not going to forgive her for anything, once he finds out. Oh he’ll find out. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">And Sherlock’s not good enough for either of them.</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I was wonderin’ when you’d come.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“See you have an accent, today.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Sit.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Why do you do that? What’s the point in it? Sherlock told me it’s this power struggle between this version of yourself and another version of yourself that’s not supposed to exist. What does that- Sorry. What does that even mean?!” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Yeah, sorry abou’ that. He’s- He doesn’ know why I did it, so he made somethin’ up. Reached for the only conclusion there is, he’d say, whole ‘no more impossible’ ‘however improbable, ‘s true’ kind of thing.” She sets the cup down, slides it over the table until it almost spills out one side. “What it is, John, is bullshit. Jus’ thought you should know that, goin’ in. Everything Sherlock’s ever told you, abou’ me, an’ what I’ve been through- ‘S bullshit.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“He doesn’t though. He’s never told me a bloody thing about you.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Your tea’s gettin’ cold-” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I don’t care about my bloody <em>tea</em>, I want to know who you are!” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“An’ I don’, John, ‘cos I don’ like talkin’ ‘bout my past if I can help it.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Why, did you kill someone?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Not’s many as you did, prolly.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“That was-” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Harsh. Yeah. Saw it on your face. ‘Ave to, though. Protect myself, ‘f I can. ‘S hard, these days.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Because of Sherlock?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Smarter’n he lets on, him.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I-Sorry. Did I miss something?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“What he’s tryin’ to be, when he talks to us like that, us… Ordinary people, he’d say, us ordinary ones, s’not smart. Knows he’s smart already, Sherlock, all he needs to do’s prove it. Goin’ for impressive, Sherlock is.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Which makes more sense than it should, when he stops to think about it. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Did it work?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Not with me. For us, it was the other way ‘round. Tea?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Good. The tea is-” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“A bit surreal?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“A bit surreal. But good.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“‘Cos I didn’ know how you took it. Funny, the things he’s never thought to ask you.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Are there many of them?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I’ve got a whole list.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Which doesn’t surprise him as much as he thinks it does, when he looks past who he sees on her face. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Well then. Try me.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“John Watson. How long’s it been since you got on with your sister?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“My sister?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Harry. The one I remind you of, ‘nough to hate.”</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>On the third day of summer they’ll drive out of the city, her with her sand-light braid flipped over one shoulder, him with his book, watching the signs and the sky from the back-seat window. They’d have liked a day or two more, for packing- Well. She would. Harriet’s lugged three suitcases with her- Pet projects, she calls them. Fills them up with plastic inserts, then the compartments with anything she can find. Rocks, seashells, forest lichen. Computer chips and stolen library books and white branches with dark chocolate scars. Pressed pennies and bottle caps. </em> </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>Gran says they’re going to her soul place, and the soul waits for no one, not even you, Harriet, you’d best hurry up with those bags. Sneaking her gaze downwards to rest on him, settle one hand on his head, ruffle his hair. It’s a wonder she can lift those things at all. Where’s she find all that, anyways? </em> </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>I’ve no idea. </em> </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>Hmm. Well. You’ll keep an eye on her, won’t you, when it’s time for all that? </em> </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>Course I will. </em> </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>Good on you, Gran will say, and then, perhaps forgetting that he never knew her, Your mother’d be proud of you, boy. </em> </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>Hours later, on a country road: </em> </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>I bet Gran used to ride a carriage out here, when she was younger. D’you think she’d take us, if we asked? </em> </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>No. </em> </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"><em>It’s worth a try, though. She writes it down in a sketchbook-turned-notebook, cover pasted over with overlapping newspaper headlines(Gran would take the morning paper and a cup of coffee, John would read over her shoulder, ooing and aahing at the same ones that made Gran’s eyes sparkle, making faces at the ones that made her swear. Ignoring the ones that made her sign in nostalgic sorrow- He’d not know how to do it, anyway, and his Gran is glad for it, this one gift that God’s given her danger prone grandson. Bless him, now and forever. Gran would finish the newspaper, stack it on the table, Harry walking over with a pair of scissors and a bottle of glue, snipping out the ‘interesting bits’ in detailed, precise lines, crisp, straight, and perfect, humming</em> ‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’ <em>under her breath.), bending at an angle to get the words out in her tight, cramped handwriting. </em></span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <b> <em>Idea #892- Ask Gran for carriage ride.</em> </b> </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>They spend the night in a shoddy hotel, Gran in the bar drinking scotch on the rocks. He’ll start unpacking, only knowing that she’s there when the things he let go of don’t fall. </em> </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>Downstairs, Gran telling the bartend, They’re not half so bad’s you think, once you get used to those peculiar natures of theirs. I’ll tell you, it’s not anything from my daughter, she was normal as a tiger squirrel, that one. </em> </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>Harriet’s found the latch on the window, she throws her head out, howling a fake wolf’s howl into the darkening night. </em> </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>Downstairs, Something in that father of theirs. Said it myself, when we got out the car, we’re only staying a night, don’t get too sentimental, but they’ll have that room of ours full already- Drawers full and everything. They’ll have bloody decorated it, you’ll see. </em> </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>She’s climbing back through the window with a handful of wildflowers when Gran comes in. </em> </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>You came too early. </em> </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>Oh, hush, you. </em> </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"><em>You came too </em>soon!<em> We nearly had it ready, you</em> know <em>you’re not supposed to come until we have it ready! You</em> promised<em>! </em></span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>Gran goes back downstairs. Harriet puts the flowers into the vase, hands shaking, spills the water when she goes to fill it. </em> </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>Downstairs, I’d have liked it to just be John. Such a good boy, John. I’ve never quite known what’s wrong with that sister of his. Harriet. Gran pauses, sighs to herself, a sigh born of nostalgic sorrow. </em> </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>I’ve never liked the name Harriet.</em> </span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I want you to tell me something, first. One thing, that’s all I want to know.”</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">No it’s not.</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Tell me about the man you can’t stop seeing in Sherlock.”</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>“Who are you waiting for?” </em> </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>They’re sitting in a chippy, and she doesn’t know how to tell him that their first date was at a chippy, and that she can still feel it, hear it, smell it, the chippy. The whole day, really- the salt and the grease and later, when the Autons were over and done with, childlike wonder at hearing him offer her the stars. </em> </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>Or something like that. </em> </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>“Someone.” </em> </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>“Someone you loved?” </em> </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>Their first date was a chippy, but he didn’t know how to be human, and maybe he’ll never know how to be human, but then, he’ll never be that person again, the one who couldn’t be bothered to keep what he thought on the inside, unless he was thinking about something that mattered. He never was that person. but he was that Time Lord, once. He wore black leather and had ears that were much too big for his head, and he tried to make her smile, if he could. She doesn’t know what he is now. Where he is. </em> </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>“You’ll figure it out eventually.” </em> </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>As soon as he figures out that she’s never stopped waiting. As soon as he goes back and he makes that choice again and he doesn’t choose Reinette. As soon as the next time they leave Jack behind a million years in the future. As soon as he stops feeling the planet spin underneath his feet. </em> </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>When he says I love you back to her, he’ll figure it out. </em> </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>She thinks she might be waiting for awhile.</em> </span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“What happened to you?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He’s not expecting it, the way that John walks down the steps like he’ll never know what happiness means again. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“She told me about the Doctor.”</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You told John. Before me.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Unlike you, John asked.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“What if I ask? What if I ask you, in those words exactly, to tell me about the Doctor?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Then I’ll tell you, but you’d ‘ave to give me time.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“How long?” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Five an’ a half hours.” </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He couldn’t wait forever for her. He couldn’t make that promise and live with it. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Time, though. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He can give her time. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He can give her five and a half hours.</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The last time he sees her, she doesn’t pretend to smile. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The stars are going out. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
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